Budo Top 5

Biography

Raised on a steady diet of Sam Cooke, Miles Davis, Emmylou Harris, and Howlin’ Wolf, he manages to combine an incredible array of disparate influences to create a unique tapestry of textures, rhythms, and sounds that add a new dimension to just about everything he touches.

Currently hard at work on his sophmore solo record, the successor to 2009’s One Bird on a Wire. With a style that owes just as much to Jon Brion as it does J Dilla, Budo is carving out an impressive niche in today’s music industry.

From production work for some of the Hip-Hop industry’s most widely respected and renowned artists, including Grieves (Rhymesayers), Macklemore, M.anifest, to Atmosphere, Brother Ali, to movie scoring, to his own solo projects, to his relentless touring schedule, Budo is a force to be reckoned with.

While experimentation is the bread and butter of my arrangement process, I generally begin the composition stage of a song with a simple Wurlitzer sound. Playing around with chord progressions and inversions with this familiar patch allows me to establish a solid foundation from which I can start to make things go a little bit crazy. This Combinator instrument is brilliant. It has the classic A200 bite, and the effects inserts are enough to give some variation while I’m getting the basic changes for the song set up.

I’m a guitar player, and the instrument is a crucial part of my songwriter process. However, it’s not always possible to pull out the Tele when I’m on the road. And, I’ve found that DI’ing a guitar doesn’t always allow for the best sound design possibilities. This Combinator instrument is incredible, and truly sounds like a mic’d, processed, filtered, and re-amped guitar in a giant tracking room. The adjustments are useful, and really allow this sound to blend exactly as a real guitar would. I use this often.

Chamber Synth
(Reason Sound Factory Bank/Thor)

This is a dead ringer for a patch I used to (over) use on my old Prophet 5. The Synth itself is long dead, but my love for this over-saturated poly synth sound lives on. This Thor patch is sluggish in just the right way, responding to my key inputs jussssst a touch behind, leading to a specific playing style that forces me to slow down and really appreciate the timbre of the chords. It’s not always that a specific synth sound influences the way that I play, but this is one of them. And the fat roundness is ripe for processing, allowing you to mold it in any number of different and exciting directions.

Plain Drive
(Reason Sound Factory/Pulverizer)

I love distortion. Thick, fat, saturation, dripping with harmonics. This patch could literally be called “Thick, Fat, Saturated, Harmonic, Distortion”. Propellerhead opted for a slightly shorter moniker, but Plain Drive is my go-to distortion patch nonetheless. This sounds great on everything from drums to vocals to guitars to synth pads. Try it on your favorite instrument. It will make it sound better. I promise.

This is one strange echo/modulation. It sweeps around in circles, up and down, back and forth. I’m pretty sure it can cause a rift in the space time continuum. It does weird and beautiful things to vocals in particular, but can also be used effectively on anything that needs a little (or a lot) of character. Be prepared for some un-expected results.

More Charts

Rikanatti Top 5

Ricky “Rikanatti” Parham is a Hip Hop and Rnb staff producer for Shady Records. He has been fortunate to work with Eminem, Ca$his and many other successful artists.